wouldn't an engine, a booster and tanks sufficient for a space container ship?

Container ships crossing the earthian oceans have their own body to prvent tha conatiners from being exposed to the salty and eroding or corroding water of the oceans merely and to make it easier to get the container or its contents out of the ships by any crane.

In space there isn't such water - it would be sufficient to simply connect tanks, booster and engine to the containers themselves and then fly them to Earth. This holds for the reverse journey also. This would be simpler than the way required for earthian container ships.

Arrived at Earth the containers could be disconnected from booster, tanks and engine and - much more interesting - from each other. Each container could be landed separately from the others at its perticular destination. This would save tranportations costs along the surface - railway, ocean ships etc.

This also could be applied at the Moon - one tranpsort towards the Moon but separated landings at different locations in parallel or short after each other - might be interesting when there are several stations - the american one, the japanese one, the european one, the chinese one and the russian one...

At least one of the approaches to win NASA's Centennial Challenmges Prize for mining oxygen out of lunar regolith will mine metals out of that regolith also - it might at least if it is enhanced, further developed, improved and so on.

The regolith itself could be the freight also - freight into earthian orbit, freight to Mars, freight to be used in space.

t/Space's concept includes the deliuvery of lunar hydrogen into earthian orbit as propellant for Mars missions to be launched out of LEO.

There also is the discussion about lunar He3.

Last I want to add that it is suspected that some former earthian nitrogen is suspected to be at the Moon - buried, having become part of lunar chemicals, dust... This nitrogen could be of meaning on Mars, on space stations and space vehicles - inclduing growing plants there because plants need that nitrogen. But of course the nitrogen could be used to produce ADMH at the Moon or in space.

He3 is just a fantasy. No one has built a working fusion power station.
As for the rest.. the moon may or may not have useable resources, we just don't know and even if it did they would have to be competitive with
Earth resources. Face it, Lunar mining will remain a pipe dream until space transportation cost go way down.

If there is a real practical need for HLLVs, space freighters etc then they will be built. Explorers examine the available technology, develop their own hardware and make do. Its a bit like someone telling Roald Amundsen he shouldn't have crossed the North West Passage in the 1890's because one day there would be nuclear powered ice breakers.

I think there may be a need for big rockets to establish Antartic style bases there, but I could be wrong. Multiple flights of a reusable vehicle may be better. I'm happy to let the builders work that out. In the mean time adventurers will make their own plans and go.

Ekkehard Augustin wrote:

At least one of the approaches to win NASA's Centennial Challenmges Prize for mining oxygen out of lunar regolith will mine metals out of that regolith also - it might at least if it is enhanced, further developed, improved and so on.

The regolith itself could be the freight also - freight into earthian orbit, freight to Mars, freight to be used in space.

t/Space's concept includes the deliuvery of lunar hydrogen into earthian orbit as propellant for Mars missions to be launched out of LEO.

don't get me wrong - I have the same preferences like you. I prefer the small(er) vehicles and mulitple launches of them.

The thought with the containers had to do with that. I am a rower and doing river trips I often pass ships that are considered to be large - but that's an error. In fact these ships are tight coupled containers to which a small ship is connected that simply consists of a machine and the cockpit for the captain and his small crew of klet's say five people. The containers would all be cargo but the space vehcile would be small. to launch the containers out of any orbit simply more - modular tanks would have to be added that can removed later again. The containers would be launched into a longer-time-trajectory and the schedule of deliveries would be adjusted to that which is no problem because Enterprise Economics includes well known methods to do so.

The He3 might be of use for companies like JP Aerospace also.

Deliveries from the Moon to Earth shouldn't be sent down to the surface at present - you are right that at present the erthian ressources are that cheap that the lunar ones can't beat them. But for use in space they have the tendency to avoid the costs to get the thrust required to lift such ressources into orbit. A large portion of these costs can be avoided by delivery from the Moon.

But all this should be done by small vehicles like the CXV for example or even by t/Space's version of the CEV. Their concept of delivery is to deliver lunar hydrogen via a CEV.sized tanker into LEO along a trajectory the tanker will go along within three months. This is chosen to save proepllant and increase the cargo capacity.

Unless there is water (ice) on the Moon. Mining that for fuel would be extremely beneficial. Flying to the Moon and back can be compared to flying from New York to Paris and back without refueling. If there was no fuel available in Paris, the flight would be nearly impossible, or at least uneconomical. Aircraft would have to be redesigned; made bigger with larger fuel tanks and carrying a much lower payload weight. If we could refuel on the Moon, the cost of a round trip to the Moon would go WAY down.

John Wickman has talked about using Lunar soil derived aluminum powder/LOX mixtures as a rocket fuel. Given the chance, aluminum particles form a tenacious oxide layer which reduces their reactivity in oxygen. This is why such a propellant might be viable, the risk is that aluminum/LOX can behave as a very powerful explosive. ...

John Wickman has also talked about pressurizing Aluminum/LOX mixtures through a tubopump, this would result in some of the aluminum oxide being worn away and sounds very risky.

There are of course more possibilities if you bring some propellant from Earth, for example you could mix metal powders in with a liquid fuel and burn it in LOX. Hybrids would also be possible, but they aren't that well suited to high performance.

and got the answer from rpspeck

[quote]Consider an Aluminum fueled hybrid with (Lunar Produced) LOX oxidizer. The fuel grain could be either sintered Aluminum particles (tolerating and possibly improved by the presence of glass, Aluminum Oxide and other metallic particles). Glassy binders could reduce thermal conductivity and facilitate the release of Aluminum into the flame zone. A small amount of hydrocarbon binder could serve similarly, but would probably need to be brought from earth. It might, alternatively, be produced from wastes, probably reduced to a â€œcharâ€

Yup. If the Moon had plenty of water then we would probably already have a permanent base there. If Mars was only 3 days away, we would already have a base there too. Too bad Mars is so far away and the Moon is so barren!

May be I should clarify it - that I said that He3 might be of use for JP Aerospace means that their vehicles might use it for buoyancy. Their ATO could carry it as cargo from LEO to the Dark Sky Station and so on.

Yes, Helium 3 is lighter than Helium 4 (and would give a little bit more lift). But it is at least a MILLION TIMES more expensive! You could work for NASA! Of course Hydrogen, although a biatomic molecule, is lighter than either.

Its a nonsense to suggest the minimal Helium on the Moon might be used for airships. Have you actually thought of the costs involved? Especially when helium is so inexpensive on Earth? Not to mention hydrogen which is a better lifting gas then Helium anyway. The advantage of Helium is its safety which would not be an issue in the nearspace altitudes of a dark station, the air is too thin for hydrogen to burn.

I really wish some people here get a grip on reality. At the moment there is no real market for moon products, at least something that can actually make money.

If you disagree with me heres the challange. Show me a proper business plan. One that can stand up to financial scrutiny. If you can't admit you are just dreaming.